When is SAM/RNG viable?

[Tidane]

I've seen people subbing RNG on SAM, and I was just wondering when it works, and how people can see it as better than a Warrior or Thief sub? The extra weaponskills may be a plus, but I've guessing you'd hit less with you weapon, and I'm not sure if the ranged attack can make up for this.

[ZQM]

Sidewinder, the God of weaponskills. :spin:

[Tidane]

So I've heard, but isn't it a low accuracy skill, and with a lower weapon rating in bow, wouldn't it miss even more? I've seen rangers miss, and that is with some beefed up ACC.

[Melkor]

I wouldnt use it, unless you can afford VERY good equipment, but even then you would still miss alot.
GK is A+ for Samurai, and with 20+ Acc, people still have problems hitting, I dont see how you could do much better with a bow since its only C+ I think.

Warrior gives Berserk, Double Attack, Att/Def Up Trait, Provoke for back up tanking & Defender if you ever need it for some reason.
I also think you get War Cry at 70? Dont know if that helps are not :D


Im just going off of what other people have said, and from testing Sam/Rng around 20, when I do hit, it hits hard, but not often, not worth giving up /War.

[ZQM]

From talking to a high leveled SAM/RNG, he hardly uses bow at all. He only went /RNG for Sidewinder. He hits like most Samurai's in order to gain TP except for: when mob does a +DEF move and nobody in the party has dispell, he's really close to 100% TP and he doesn't want to wait the long delay of the GK, and right after he levels to cap the skill (he uses sharpshots right before a Sidewinder, so after the sidewinder he'll do strait bow and arrow until sharpshot runs off).

I'm sure there's different stratagies to it. Bloodberry is a lv60 SAM/RNG, so I'm sure she can share her insight.

[kujo412]

Originally posted by Tidane
I've seen people subbing RNG on SAM, and I was just wondering when it works, and how people can see it as better than a Warrior or Thief sub? The extra weaponskills may be a plus, but I've guessing you'd hit less with you weapon, and I'm not sure if the ranged attack can make up for this.

it works after level 57 when you get sidewinder.. that is the only reason to sub rng.. you don't use bow as your primary, you build tp with a katana as regularly, and you get a couple of accuracy traits from the rng sub, so accuracy isn't *too* bad. you still need to buy lots of ranged accuracy gear, on top of whatever you use.

Originally posted by Tidane
So I've heard, but isn't it a low accuracy skill, and with a lower weapon rating in bow, wouldn't it miss even more? I've seen rangers miss, and that is with some beefed up ACC.

if you fire it off at 100tp there's a good probability of it missing ~_~ with 150+ your odds of missing decrease by about half.. having HQ ranged accuracy rings, and spectacles/peacock charm/ merman's gorget is absolutely necessary. and a bard with hunter's/archer's preludes is always a plus ~_~

Originally posted by Melkor
I wouldnt use it, unless you can afford VERY good equipment, but even then you would still miss alot.
GK is A+ for Samurai, and with 20+ Acc, people still have problems hitting, I dont see how you could do much better with a bow since its only C+ I think.

Warrior gives Berserk, Double Attack, Att/Def Up Trait, Provoke for back up tanking & Defender if you ever need it for some reason.
I also think you get War Cry at 70? Dont know if that helps are not :D


Im just going off of what other people have said, and from testing Sam/Rng around 20, when I do hit, it hits hard, but not often, not worth giving up /War.

you don't use the bow at all except for ws.. so worrying about the weapon ratings is kinda pointless.. and the more tp you have, the better chance of hitting with the ws. since samurai get so much tp the rating isn't really a big factor until 70+

testing sam/rng at 20 is rather pointless.. try it again at 57 with a maxed out archery skill so you'll have sidewinder.. it's really not worth it until then.

Originally posted by ZQM
From talking to a high leveled SAM/RNG, he hardly uses bow at all. He only went /RNG for Sidewinder. He hits like most Samurai's in order to gain TP except for: when mob does a +DEF move and nobody in the party has dispell, he's really close to 100% TP and he doesn't want to wait the long delay of the GK, and right after he levels to cap the skill (he uses sharpshots right before a Sidewinder, so after the sidewinder he'll do strait bow and arrow until sharpshot runs off).

I'm sure there's different stratagies to it. Bloodberry is a lv60 SAM/RNG, so I'm sure she can share her insight.

the person you talked to pretty much nails it right on the head. you build tp as normal with katana.. 150+ then equip all of your ranged accuracy gear, maybe get ranged accuracy song from a bard, use sharpshot, then fire off sidewinder.. as for straight bow and arrow after sharpshot.. eh... that's when the difference in weapon rating starts kicking in.. i personally stick with katana afterwards.. and if i really want to test the paladin i'd use meditate and fire off another sidewinder before sharpshot wears off ~_~

[ZQM]

How do you keep your archery capped after you level? Is Sidewinder enough? He said that Sidewinder took to long to cap archery so that's why he does it.

[Tidane]

I assume you'd keep it leveled by leveling Ranger or something with it. Atleast, until the point where the skill difference is too large to do it leveling another job, then join skill-ups or something.

I didn't plan on going SAM/RNG at 20, I was just wondering when I can, without being incredibly gimp.

[fastcart]

You can start trying out sam/rng at lvl 55-56 to get use to not having war sub traits. Then, as previously stated, you get sidewinder at 57. Not having war sub traits and getting use to using Sharp shoot is really a hurdle especialy if you took sam/war to 57+ like i did. But, the plus side it makes you a better puller in xp situations where you don't have competition for mobs because of Alertness and Camoflage. I'm currently sam61/rng33.

Maxing bow is a pain and expensive. Especially when your archery skill is no where near maxed. I had to max bow from 100 to 175 at 58 (i was late getting sw). You can use cheap iron arrows in skill up pts, but i recommend using horn arrows for xping. I use a Speed Bow so i can shoot fast. This lets me max bow at about 1500 or less into lvl and i got about 8.0 lvls an hour in archery from skill up pts. When you mean business (xping, etc.) use War Bow+1 (90k or less).

Having said all this, now i must tell you that sam/rng doesn't really shine until sam60. The combo of our AF3 (for meditate), Sharp shoot and accuracy bonus, and Barrage (from rng30 sub) really makes us a force to be reckoned with. Occassionally, I won't have tp to renkei with sw because Meditate is on cool down, but in then I can use Yukikaze or another great katana ws because I'll have 100% fast anyway. Then by the time whomever I'm renkeing with gets 100% tp again, i'll have 190%-240% from Meditate+AF3 helm. I try not to use SW unless i have at least 200%. At 200% you'll hit VT/IT mobs 8 outta 10 times with sw. But, I usually pt with a Brd giving me Hunter's Prelude so ymmv.

If you got anymore questions just ask.

[locke20]

I started using Sam/ranger from lv 60-63 and being able to pull off sidewinders is really nice, IF you hit. Also the passive accuracy bonus isnt bad either. The main problem with this set up is getting the balance from accuracy and range accuracy gears.

The problem with sidewinder is that you need 200+TP, and sharpshot on to hit and even then you miss rate is still pretty high. Dont even think about using this combo unless you have a bard in the pt. You definitely deal less damage compared to warrior sub in the long run since youre per hit is lower and pulling off Sidewinders at 200+ TP every 5 minutes is a long time to wait (also IF sidewinder hits).

Rangers have A+ skill in bows and have about 40+ on range acuracy. Sam has C+ in bow skill and the thing is the skill gap from an A and a C widens ALOT after lv 60. at lv 63 my Gkatana caps at 217 and bow at 197 or so. i also have +28rng accu and it stil isnt enough. thats using equip macro on scorpion rings +1. only way i can think of this to work practically is to wear a peackock charm and wait till higher levels for gears that have range acuracy+ (sam only bow at lv 70 ish has +7range accu and that new relic Kabuto). well thats a maybe. Ill stick to warrior for now >.<

[Lilith]

if u're using spike necklace(dex+3,str+3) as sam with rng sub.forget about landing sidewinders on VT or IT.U need a peacock charm or spectacle(sp? lvl 59 neck equip) to have a chance to even land sidewinder.hell,even rng with peacock isnt guaranteed to land it